Daniel Rozin's Trash Mirror now on display at THEMUSEUM

Last night was the opening of RAM (Rethinking Art and Machine) at THEMUSEUM. Once I again I find myself wondering “How does this stuff happen in a place like Kitchener, Ontario?” That question is what brought me to this city in the first place, and I hope you will be asking the same during SLSA. See today’s article on RAM in the Kitchener-Waterloo Record.

Colleen Wolstenholme's "Xanax" at the UW School of Pharmacy

Today, Colleen Wolstenholme’s oversize brass casts of Xanax and Dilaudid were installed at the UW School of Pharmacy in Downtown Kitchener. Ivan Jurakic, Director of the University of Waterloo Art Gallery is also installing a large collection of Colleen’s work on the main campus to coincide with CAFKA and SLSA. Wolstenholme’s sculpture and jewelry, including “Viagra/Birth Control Rosary,” will be on display at the Critical Media Lab during CAFKA. You can hear Colleen discuss her work — including the copyright controversies surrounding it and her potential law suit against Damien Hirst — during her SLSA panel talk on Saturday, September 24.

A total of over 30 performers…lounge, dancing, food, cocktails. Everything is ready including an 11 piece Salsa band. What more can I say?

You can read more about the event and its headliner band KAZU here:

http://www.nerudaproductions.com/content/event/cazu-latin-band

Note that there will be no entry fee for conference registrants.

Final Construction Phase of Stephen Hawking Centre

For you SLSA physicists, it might be worthwhile making an extended stay in the area to check out the new Stephen Hawking Centre at the Perimetre Institute for Theoretical Physics here in Waterloo. The grand opening is from September 16-18, and Hawking is expected to attend. Read about it here:

http://www.cbc.ca/m/touch/technology/story/2011/07/27/science-hawking-waterloo.html

“In mid-September, five local arts groups intend to “turn on” downtown Kitchener with a festival of cultural events.”

Of course, we are not exactly an “arts group,” but the others wanted to include us in the mix.

See the full article here.

Alan Wrath, Neo Watcher III, 2001 Aluminum, rubber, electronics, LCDs 26 x 39 x 21 inches

THEMUSEUM in Kitchener has just announced its lineup for the RAM exhibition (Rethinking Art and Machine) coming this fall. The exhibition includes an impressive collection of work from pioneers in computational art. Here is part of the press release:

In the fall of 2011 THEMUSEUM in downtown Kitchener will open an exhibition entitled RAM | Rethinking Art and Machine. It is a perfect cultural compliment to the high tech community of Waterloo Region and nicely draws on THEMUSEUM’s early motto Art and Technology at Play.

Collaborating with Curator Marla Wasser (the curator of our past show, Andy Warhol’s Factory 2009) we have developed and created this unique world class experience and with the assistance of partners hope to export RAM from Waterloo Region to other museums and galleries. RAM will showcase pioneer artists from around the world who have addressed the relationship between art and electronic technology, light, graphics, robots, and virtual reality dating back to the 1960’s.

The artists include George Legrady, Jim Campbell, Manfred Mohr, Alan Rath, Daniel Rozin, Peter Vogel and David Rokeby. These innovators have broken down the traditional boundaries that existed between the artistic and technological disciplines. RAM the exhibit will survey the work and ideas of these artists and the understanding of its aesthetics and socio-cultural aspirations. Within each one of these unique artist areas the audience will learn how each artist integrates their personal life experiences through human-computer interactions and the humanization of machines.

RAM is an interactive exhibit and a wide body of work will be presented from each artist, allowing the audience to understand the impact of evolving technology as it relates directly to the artist and their own personal vision and message.

The artists in the exhibition were doing “digital art” before it was cool (if indeed it is). THEMUSEUM gives us a chance to compare Manfred Mohr’s algorithmic images from the 60s with David Rokeby’s latest sensor-based installation. The show is scheduled to open in mid-September, around the same time as CAFKA and SLSA. SLSA has negotiated with THEMUSEUM to provide conference participants with a 50%+ discount on entry to this exhibition.

Please visit the link below to see Delta’s custom page for our conference:
http://www.deltakitchener.com/1109univer